Analysis Of The Last Dog By Katherine Bergeron

Courageous Characters Communities have a very big impact on people’s lives, especially in science fiction stories. Many inspire courage for a character in times of need. Four pieces of text illustrate this perfectly: “The Last Dog,” by Katherine Patterson; “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut; The Monsters are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling; and The Giver by Lois Lowry. Each community in these stories influenced the main character’s courage in a difficult situation. In the short story, “The Last Dog,” Brock’s community affected him greatly. After Brock found Brog, scientists wanted to clone him for experimental purposes. For instance, the author said, “‘Cloning-it’s the only thing to do. If she’s the last, we owe it to prosperity to

A power failure threatened Maple Street, with a strange meteor seeming to be the cause of it. Under normal circumstances, this would be no need for courage. However, his community was very anxious and paranoid about the whole predicament, and was starting to point fingers as to who was to blame. Since Steve was eventually incriminated, too, for suspicious behavior, his community made him angry and defensive. That eventually led him having enough courage to stand up for himself. For example, Steve said, “‘And stop telling me who’s dangerous and who isn’t and who’s safe who’s a menace,” (Serling 678). This shows he was able to stand up for himself, without blaming anyone else, because he was under pressure from his community. Also, he understands everyone is different and urges the crowd no to crucify based upon that. Not to mention, he goes to great lengths to protect his community. For instance, Steve said, “‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Let’s not be a mob!’” (Serling 673). This quote shows that he was trying to keep the crowd peaceful, so there would be no fights between his neighbors. In conclusion, Steve showed courage because of the pressure from his community and his will to protect

A newchild, Gabriel, was going to be released. For anyone else in this community, this would not be as devastating as it was for Jonas. However, his community affected him in two ways that made the ordeal quite worse for him. First, quite simply, Jonas actually knew what was going to happen to Gabe during the release, unlike most of his community – he would have been killed. For example, the author said, “He killed it! My father killed it!” (Lowry 150). This quote showed Jonas watching the recording and finally realizing what release really means. Second, Jonas understood emotions such as love, happiness, and a sense of family. For instance, Jonas said, “I liked the feeling of love,” (Lowry 126). Due to his understanding of love and family, he formed an emotional attachment with Gabriel, something that does not happen in this community, because of their lack of emotions. Those factors made Jonas have the courage to save Gabe. Overall, Jonas’ knowledge and wisdom from memories and the recording of the release helped him to find his own